Mental Development in the Child and the Race
Appendix C: 2. Fluctuations of Attention
Appendix C: 2. Fluctuations of Attention [1]
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An interesting confirmation of the theory of attention as motor phenomenon is afforded by recent experiments of " fluctuations of
(473) the attention." It has been found by Dunlap (Psychological Review, XI., 1904, pp. 308, 319) not only that a barely audible continuous sound has periods al inaudibility, but that a just inaudible discontinuous sound reports its own breaks in some way, even though it does not become audible. As I interpret these results, -- variations in the concentration processes of attention result in varying intensities of the sound, even to inaudibility; and, on the other hand, interruptions in an inaudible sound produce variations in the reflex concentration processes which are felt and remarked even though the sound does not itself come above the audible threshold. In other words, the sensori-motor association is functionally and cerebrally so close that it works its results as between stimulus and attentive response whether or not one or both of the terms be clearly conscious, subconscious, or altogether hidden in a mass of irrelevant happenings (as in cases of distraction). It shows the operation of dynamogenesis in this particular response, the attention, of the delicacy shown for other responses by the cases of 'suggestion' reported above (in Chapter VI.).
